Former Beverly Hills Attorney
Pleads Not Guilty to Embezzlement From Sons of Dead LAPD Officer

By a MetNews Staff
Writer

A former Beverly Hills lawyer and another
defendant pled not guilty Friday to stealing a $380,000 life insurance
settlement from two Inglewood brothers who police say
were gunned down by a man dressed as a postal worker while awaiting settlement
of their mother’s estate.

In addition to the grand
theft by embezzlement charge, Angela Wallace, 41, and co-defendant Timothy
Mack, 46, also pled not guilty to charges of perjury stemming from filing
false applications for driver’s licenses.

Wallace is also charged
with three counts of forgery for allegedly using a false power of attorney to
open a bank account under the name of one of the brothers.

Wallace faces a maximum
of eight years and eight months in prison if convicted on all counts. Mack
faces a maximum of six years and eight months.

A pretrial hearing was
scheduled for Aug 13. A bail review hearing was set for Mack, who has been in
custody since his February arrest, for July 24. His bail is currently set at
$400,000. Wallace remains free on $150,000 bond.

Prosecutors accuse
Wallace of cheating brothers Jontrae Byrdsong, 18, and Howard Byrdsong, 20, out
of the life insurance settlement they were to receive from the estate of their
mother, Los Angeles Police Officer Shiree Arrant, after she died in 2000, and
of lying to them about ever receiving it.

Just months after the
Byrdsongs contacted the District Attorney’s Office last spring with their
suspicions of Wallace and Mack, prosecutors say the brothers were shot to death
at the home where they had been staying after a man dressed as a postal worker
knocked on the door, pistol-whipped family friend Regina Martin and killed the
men.

Inglewood police are currently
investigating the killings and investigators are focusing on the contact the
brothers had with Wallace and Mack, Lt. Alex Perez said.

Wallace was serving a
two-year suspension and barred from practicing law in California when she represented
herself as an attorney from the All American Law Firm to the Byrdsong brothers
and agreed to act as their trustee, prosecutors say.

In August 2000, Wallace
sent a letter to the insurance company handling Arrant’s policy, instructing
the insurer to send a lump sum payment to Howard Byrdsong in care of Wallace.

Several days later,
prosecutors allege, Wallace opened a bank account at City National Bank under
the name “All American Law Firm FBO Howard Byrdsong” with a forged power of
attorney. Over the next seven months Wallace used the account to write numerous
unauthorized checks to herself, her law firm, and others, according to the
amended complaint, prosecutors say.

Last spring, Wallace
allegedly told Martin she had not received the settlement check. A man
identifying himself as a negotiator for Wallace then visited the home of Martin
and Howard Byrdsong and offered Byrdsong a settlement of $125,000 on the spot
and $143,631.41 after he rescinded an affidavit of forgery he had filed with
City National Bank, according to the amended complaint. Wallace allegedly later
visited the Byrdsongs and told them she had invested $125,000 because she had
invested all of the money.

Mack, who identified
himself as a representative of the bank, also visited Howard Byrdsong and
presented him with a document entitled “Out-of-Court Settlement,” which
proposed a settlement between the elder brother and the bank for $125,000 and
released Wallace of all liability regarding the remaining money, according to
the amended complaint.

Wallace, a graduate of
USC law school, was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1988. She
received a two-year suspension in September 1999 after stipulating to seven
counts in six consolidated cases, according to the California Bar Journal, an
official State Bar publication.

Wallace stipulated that
she “commingled funds, allowed the misappropriation of client funds and
committed acts of moral turpitude” in one case and she failed to communicate
with a client after receiving settlement funds in another. Wallace also
stipulated that she “failed to perform legal services competently or refund her
client’s advanced fees.”

She resigned from the
State Bar last May with charges pending. Charges brought by the State Bar are
not made public until they are actually filed and Wallace resigned before
anything was filed against her, State Bar spokeswoman Kathleen Beitiks said.